This stylish family tree helps to explain the elven families from ‘The Rings of Power’

In Tolkien’s world of Middle-earth, and now in the current Amazon series Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, it is often hard to keep track of who is who amongst the many elves, humans, dwarves, and hobbits. Harder still is keeping track of who is related to who, especially in the case of the long-living elves who seem to have a proclivity for dating relatives, even if they are somewhat distant. One fan artist created a beautiful and helpful family tree to aid those who may be struggling to keep everything in order.

The race of elves is vast, but when it comes to nobility, though still confusing, it starts to become a little more compact. The artist @Cy-lindric, who posted the image to Twitter, chose to focus on the descendants of the High King of the Ñoldor, Finwë, which encompasses many of the main characters we have come to know through the movies and now in The Rings of Power series. The family tree of Finwë shows the marriages and children of the Finwë line, with beautiful illustrations of the artist’s interpretation for each character.

As with the recent series the illustrator has chosen to diversify the skin coloring of the elves, shying away from the traditional light-skinned elves of past adaptions. Each portrait shows a little personality for each character making the overall image highly interesting and engaging.

From the line of Finwë came some of the most powerful elves in Middle-earth and also amongst them were many half-elves, who were born from a human parent and an elf parent. This is the case for Elrond and his brother Elros who were born to parents who were also half elf, half human. An elf can choose immortality or not, and where Elrond decided to remain an immortal elf his brother Elros chose differently and went on to become the first King of Númenor, the race of long-lived humans we have now met in the third episode of The Rings of Power.

Galadriel is also a part of this family, granddaughter to Finwë and daughter to Finarfin and Eärwen. This makes her Elrond’s great, great aunt. However, that didn’t stop Elrond from marrying her daughter, Celerbrían, making Galadriel his mother-in-law and his daughter Arwen’s grandmother. See, it is very confusing. Not to mention that Aragorn is a descendant of the kings of Númenor and therefore very very distantly related to Elrond as well, making Arwen, his wife, also his distant cousin with roughly 80 generations separating the two.

As well as the characters that are more prominent in the books there are plenty of other notable mentions within the family tree. The house of Finwë has seen its fair share of strife and tragedy, with figures enacting great deeds but also being misguided by the evil whisperings of the evil Melkor/Morgoth.

Even with this handy family tree, it can still be exceptionally confusing and if you wish to find out more about the characters and gain some clarity, reading The Simarillion may help.